George Conway, Carolyn Ryan & Timothy Snyder

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2:02Investing in Valsaris, including potential answer principal LPL Financial LLC member Finn Res IPC. Welcome to Fast Politics. I'm Molly John Fast and we have a great show for you today. Later in the show, we'll talk to the New York Times's own Carolyn Ryan about the signs she sees to tell us how the midterms will go. Then as a bonus, we have Timothy Snyder and he's going to talk to us about Trump's increasingly insane rhetoric. But first we have Stake of Politics's own George Conway to talk about Donald Trump destroying America with debt. George Conway, hello. Donald Trump is doing to our federal deficit. What he did to the Trump organization. Really? Trump stakes, Trump water, the Trump shuttle. Oh, we talked about bankruptcy. Yes, we're talking about bankruptcy. Do you see this coming? Well, you just, somehow I just felt it coming.

3:02Let me tell you a funny story once. Yeah. I was with my ex-wife in Ventur New Jersey and we were with this Washington Post reporter, got him Ben Terrace. Yeah. And this was 2019. I was just starting, I was off the reservation. So he was kind of very curious about what I had to say and what she had to say and how it differed. And this is, I actually got into the newspaper. She started talking about how wonderful it was. Some Donald Trump had been so good to Atlantic City and that he built the Taj Mahal. And I said, yeah, went bankrupt twice. But anyway, yeah. So you want to talk about the federal debt? I mean, I think since it's hitting, since it's yet another thing in this administration that is breaking records, it might be worth looking at. Yes, I mean, it's sort of like the practical things about running a country get lost in all the insanity and corruption. But the way to think about this is that for the United States, I mean, the debt is at a record figure. And I forget what percentage of that debt 30, 40?

4:06High percentage of that debt was accumulated by the 45th and 47th presidents of the United States, who is actually just one guy. And maybe most of it was accumulated by the other 44 or 45, depends on where you can't go over a clean one twice. But this one guy somehow managed to do most of himself like no one has ever seen. And the problem also is like, we're not like Kimberly Gilfoil. The United States of America is not like Kimberly Gilfoil. We just can't call up someone and say, hey, pay our bills, right? You can't just send a single text and say, look, just send the money directly to our creditors. And those are great. So you're referencing this incredible reporting from the Wall Street Journal owned by Ripper Murdoch, the story of Kimberly Gilfoil getting, sending a guy, a donor, a Republican donor, a wireering instructions to her American express card because she owed $100,000

5:07before she was going in front of Congress to get congressional approval to become the ambassador to Greece a job she was given so that Donald Trump Jr. could marry someone else. I mean, we all every month when our American express bills come through, we all have someone we text to say, please, please pay it. And don't pay for it. And don't write it down because it'll screw up our congressional hearings. That was actually the smartest thing she said, the little text saying, stop it, you're going to get me, you're going to screw up my confirmation. That was the smartest thing she said. But I want to point out that I'm not sure how many people have a PDF ready of how to wire and pay my AMEX. That's not something that you generally have available. You don't have one in your purse? Like do you know, hand it out as you walk down the street in New York, say, hey, by the way, I have some bills here. Like, don't you think the fact that she had that on the ready, one could guess that this is not

6:12the first time she's done this? But I thought she was like, you know, a professional. I mean, you know, I mean a professional person who, you know, like a works at Fox News. Yes, a PhD. Yes, yes. A person who works at Fox News, a professional. It has a has a has a has an income that she where she makes her own money. Yeah. No, I don't know. I don't know either. So we're just asking questions. We're just asking questions. But when you read that Wall Street Journal piece about Kimberly Gelfoil, and it's actually the second one because it was earlier, she's had this lobbyist with her. You know, there's all sorts of it strikes. She there's clearly a lot of hanky, panky going on or she cannery, right? Correct. But my question to you is, doesn't this remind you of Trump 1.0 where like there were stories like this every day? Oh, yeah, there were, but it's much worse now. Right. It's much worse. It's much worse. I mean, you've got all the people who didn't go into the administration who have been around for years who are basically, you know, collecting money from foreign governments, collecting money from

7:16companies who are fearful of being regulated or who want regulation of other people in their industry and want to encourage favor with the administration and believe that the way in to the administration is to hire people who are associated with the, you know, the Trump 1.0 or Trump 2.0. And, you know, if we had a real justice department at this moment, there'd be a massive investigation of Kimberley-Gillfoil and the way it worked and this, you know, I don't think Kimberley-Gillfoil is the big fish here and I don't know whether she did anything, frankly, that was illegal. It certainly was sleazy. I don't know how, you know, the question of illegality would be, you know, whether she was giving something of governmental, you know, as a governmental servant, I don't think that was, I think she was just trying to, whether she disclosed that she was a lobbyist, but any point about it is- Ambassador ships are notoriously sketchy because they're usually given to donors and it's not that. It's either way. It's a slippery slope.

8:17Yeah, and yeah, I don't, but I don't, you know, but I don't know if this had anything to do with their ambassador ship other than she was trying to not have the debt listed when she filed her financial disclosures or whatever disclosures, because she was concerned about having to file, which you do have to file when you apply for one of these jobs and then subsequently have to disclose under the Ethics and Government Act. So I don't know, I don't know that she did anything illegal. It certainly looks bad, but I think it really does reflect an industry that is going on right now. And it's not, it's sleazy. I mean, it just has a sleazy look about it, sleazy, feel about it, and there are gradations of it that range from just ordinary regular lobbying that goes on under any administration to something could, it could be much worse. I mean, and it's all kind of a spectrum and there are lots of different people involved in the way these investigations sometimes get started is that somebody gets pissed off because they didn't get their monies work. And I remember, I, one of the things I was sort of thinking of when I met

9:20about this story and was thinking about it last night was the Jack Abramoff situation. Remember, Jack Abramoff and Jack Abramoff had been at one point. I think a very high official in the RNC. Maybe it was even chairman of the RNC, but he was a very, very prominent Republican, very smart guy. He was kind of an entrepreneur. He had started a couple of great restaurants on Pennsylvania Avenue. He was very religious. And he, but he, you know, he just got his, he had his finger into many pies and he ended up doing this bit where he was convinced he convinced some, I think, an Indian tribe that they, that he could get something done with their Indian casinos or something like that. And they ended up feeling like, you know, we didn't get our monies worth. And that triggered that was part of a big, big investigation. He also went to jail and it's like, right, when you piss somebody off and that's what Gil Foyle did here with this guy who was quite a character. He apparently went on the Bullwork podcast. Yes. On the Bullwork podcast with Sam Stein yesterday. Yes. Yes.

10:23Just let loose. It's like, and he also was on MS and I think he was on CNN. He sort of hit all the places and he's loud and and and maybe a little Sam Nunberg. Yeah. Yeah. I was. He's a leader. This is his name. Yeah. Every theory. You know, he may be, he may be a little over the edge or over over the top a little bit, but he's pissed off and that's actually how, you know, investigations of various sorts get started. It's like you, you, you, you, somebody gets pissed off that they paid money, didn't get their monies worth. Then people looking at the prosecutor's start looking at it or investigators start looking at whether this was legal or not and then look at the issues and they look at where the money went and then maybe somebody didn't pay their taxes or maybe there was something in the legal. Maybe they passed on money to someplace else. They didn't disclose. Maybe they were committing fraud when they told the person they could do something and then that person, you know, like, I could be like, okay, okay, okay. I know everybody else is doing stuff that's worse than I could tell you about them.

11:25Right. Right. Right. Right. It comes a bigger and bigger investigation and that's the kind of thing that would happen if you actually had a department of justice that was willing to prosecute people that had something, you know, have something to do with this administration. So, I mean, the real question is, are these people ever going to be held accountable? And again, I'm not saying Kimberly Gillfoil herself did anything illegal here. Okay. But this is again, this is norms versus right. This is a false. But when you have little bits like this, you know, there's a lot of things going on there. Some of them aren't holding a cushion. It's just as that feel to it. And, you know, I just hope to hope to high heaven that, you know, the Democrats, we in both houses of Congress and start just turning over the rocks here. Now, obviously, Justice Department's not going to do anything, but some of these, some of these things that could, if there are, if there are offenses to be found, some of them, they could be federal offenses, but they could also be state law offenses. They could also be offenses under foreign law, you know, when you're dealing with,

12:28you know, a lot of these Trumpers are taking money from foreign governments and foreign interests. And, you know, we don't know what that all entails. And just a lot of this, just a lot of money sloshing around. And, you know, the Wall Street Journal has done a tremendous service, a tremendous job looking into this stuff, pro-publica, pro-publica. I always pronounce it wrong, pro-publica, you know, with that story about the Don Jr wedding. I mean, this stuff, we're going to be finding out stuff like this for years. And the real question is, you know, who's going to be held accountable and how? And I think right now, it's, you know, our best hope is that we have a real Justice Department in a couple of years that can pursue this, but it's going to take a while to get that Justice Department up and running because the current Justice Department, you know, so many good people have been forced to and have left because they just can't, they can't, they can't stand being part of an organization that's being so degraded. And in fact, I know, though, I think there's one lot of hope on the horizon. I know that there's somebody, there are people trying to

13:31form groups or organizations that are going to get together, you know, these are private groups that are going to get together, professional exp prosecutors and investigators, you know, they will have subpoena power, but they can, they can put together based upon these news stories and based upon gum shoe work, you know, case files so that people, when we have real prosecutors someday, back in, back on the job, they'll have something to work with and get started on. Yeah, I think that's really important. And I think like, there's definitely going to need to be, and we see this with voters, right? We, like, we look at these midterms and we see a huge group of double haters. Those are people who are mad at corruption. Are they, they're mad at Republicans, they're mad at Republicans, because there's more Republican corruption, but they're mad at both. And if you don't address that corruption, they'll be mad at Democrats too. And so that is, that you do that, A, because it's right, and B, because it's politically savvy. You know, it's politically savvy. And also it's, you know, it's like one of the reasons why we have

14:34a criminal law. We have the criminal law for general determinants, we have it for specific deterrents to keep the bad guy specifically under wraps. But we also have it for, there's a retributive, there's the need for retribution. There's a need to feel that things are being, that there's a fairness in the world. And all of these things are really, really important. And we've lost them. And, and we can't have a society under the rule of law where people feel that they are punished for a bailing law. And that's what we have right now. People feel disadvantaged because they can't, they follow the law, they pay their taxes. They don't, you know, they can't, they can't buy favors from the government, or they're not friendly with people who can give them a week and a nod and a pass. And that's very, very corrosive democratic government, very, very corrosive to the rule of law. And I think a lot of that, I mean, I don't, I don't, I can't figure out the, the, the, I mean, I think that's part of, I think what's going to undermine the Republicans this

15:36year, especially, even including among former double or triple Trump voters. I also think, you know, maybe it's part of, I can't figure out the far, far left here. They hate everybody. But, it, I, you know, I mean, a lot of the unhappiness in our country, it can be attributed to the fact that people feel that other people are getting away with murder. And they're not, and, you know, the irony is that those people voted Trump in. Some of those people voted that in and, you know, they just made it worse. So we have to kind of, we have to undo it and, and convince people that it's got it, it's getting better and it's never going to be perfect. But we're trying. And, I mean, I mean, I, I just want to do your part by, by playing by the rules too. Right. And I mean, I just want to push back for a minute on that there is an interparty squabble between the left and the never Trump wing, which I would, from the, for the very far left and the never Trump wing. And I, and also just mainstream Democrats. Right. And, right. And by the way, I don't think that an interparty squabble is necessarily because if you're a big tent,

16:41you're going to have that. Correct. Right. But an interparty squabble is, is, I think, much better. Right. You don't want to have a big tent where everybody's in lockstep. But an interparty squabble, I think is much, much better than having Nazis take over your party. Which is what we're seeing on the right. Yeah. No, I agree with that. And I'm, I'm, you know, I, I'm glad now to belong to a political party that has different factions. Yeah. And has disagreements and has debates. But what I don't like right now that's going on is that we should be able to agree that these people over there are worse and we should be able to unite to fight that person. I mean, you can see it with, with, you know, there are never Trumpers. There are, and there are mainstream Democrats who supported what was their name, the one with a funny accent in Michigan. But I, but I want to say one thing, which I do think we're seeing. Haley Stevens. Well, we're seeing, Haley Stevens has been one of

17:44the great campaigns, eras to Dr. L. Said. And so it's a great example. And I'm asked out to Dr. L. Said, yeah, just the other day. I mean, I, you know, I mean, he's grown on me. And he's like, yes, I may not agree on with him on everything. But I, you know, he's going to fight, he's going to fight Trump to, yeah, with everything he's got. And that's what I want. And he is a very, and what I've been struck by is there have been these very good debates between him and my graduate, Florida's own microaggers, who, who, where we do see a lot of really good smart pushback, the thing that I've been really struck by with him. And we've seen this with some of the other candidates. And I thought that in Maine, uh, Trojaxon has done a pretty good job of this too, which is the just focusing on money in your pocket, you know, a public option for healthcare or Medicare for all or something like that, you know, a sort of solution based, you know, you push back on these Republicans, but then you get right to a solution. Yeah. Um, yeah. And I

18:47also like his, I like Jackson's line about rock salt. Yes, you can. You can eat rock salt. Can eat rock salt. No, I, I, I, at least these candidates are, are, are great issues. I'm just amazed at some of the discussion I see online. And of course, online is not a real sample of what's going on in the real world, where people are more focused on settling scores within the tent than they are, you know, uniting to, to, to, to fire outside. Can I just, can, yeah, I mean, I do want to just add one thing there, though, which is in some ways Elon Musk has done a great favor for Democrats because, uh, X is such a cesspool of bots. And they're so little like actual natural engagement on the platform that it's interesting to see how little, you know, he's really, it used to be, and I, boneness, because I really appreciate it, but used to be, you could go to Accency, what everybody was reading, you could see, you know, if their story, if a, if a piece of writing was

19:48shared, you could see who had shared it and what they had said about it. So you could really get a sense of where public thinkers were and that it's no longer that. And it's, oh, I agree with that. This weekend, this Musk film came out. It's about to come out this Alex Gimney movie, which is four hours long, and it talks about what he did to Twitter. He actually does the same exact thing and uses the same emails to the federal government. Yep. Yep. No. And it was actually a, my fiancee has, has brought this book that she started reading on the plane over, we're, we're in, we're in the Europe right now. Your fiancee, you say? Yeah. So she, we, it's, it's the, the Michael Lewis book on, on, basically on Doge. So it's absolutely fabulous. And, you know, anyway, and Michael Lewis, who is very smart and who's been on this podcast and, uh, who talked, who has written this whole book about what the federal government does and what doge,

20:49the kind of carnage that don't draw it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, George Conway, what races are you looking at right now? I don't think I'm looking at anything different than anybody else. I mean, I'm fascinated with the Taloriko. I hope he recovers fully from the flu and gets back out on the trail. I am fascinated with Michigan. Yeah. I watched some of the clips of that debate this morning and, um, Kansas, and Kansas, and Hamilton and Kansas who just, almost all of the Republican governors of, oh, Kansas to endorse him with the exception of Sam Brownback. Yeah. No, it's incredible. It's incredible. And, um, you know, he's, he's a very, you know, he's, he's the exactly kind of democratic that should be able to succeed out in the Midwest and, um, need more of him. He's a good man, a pastor. And also, nobody's gonna, you know, nobody's gonna trash him for being some kind of irreligious, eastern or something like that. Um, he's great. Also, uh, was on fire the other day.

21:53I love him. Uh, he's gonna, he's gonna, he, he, I mean, he's not even a question. Any other thing I saw is that that the, that the, that the Republicans are moving money into South Carolina. They're worried about Darlene Graham and, and my grand Annie Andrews there who I maxed out to like a year ago. She's getting some traction here. I hope it pray that would be so glorious. Yeah. And, and the lesson there is if you run good candidates who are hyper local and come from the place as opposed to live in Florida, uh, which a lot of these Republicans do. To do believe in the flow of the show I heard was they all live in Florida. They all live in Florida. George Conway. All right. We come back. I always come back. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again. The sweater that somehow works with everything. The jeans you know will always fit just right or the bag.

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25:19I flew to New York to see Jay Z 30 in New York now Los Angeles we get a chance to see it right here. Jay Z 30 is going down in Los Angeles which are the two nights at SoFi Stadium October 23rd and 24th get your tickets right now to experience it that's right Jay Z 30 live nation.com grab your tickets. I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it but I don't trust much of anything. It's the range. It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America. What if you could make that stop? With LPL Financial we remove the things holding you back and provide the services to help push you forward. If you're a financial advisor what if you could

26:21have more freedom but also more support ready to invest what if you could have an advisor that really understood you when it comes to your finances your business your future at LPL Financial we believe the only question should be what if you could. Paydivertize banana Kendrick is not a client of LPL Financial LLC and receives compensation to promote LPL investing in Valsaris including potential answer principal LPL Financial LLC member Finn Rass IPC. By the time for the headlines in last night we saw the people who have to defend the indefensible the senators who are trying to win against Dr. Abdul Al-Sahid and John Asaf just have some of the worst debate showings I've ever seen in my entire life. My favorite I mean first of all my Collins is a really terrible candidate but John Asaf I mean it's like it's Asaf is like a good candidate but also is great to be at her and a great to be at her but he's also running again someone who's just like you know every story is like this guy who works for my Collins has a swastika on his Facebook page

27:22I mean like every way his line was amazing he says said you were playing half the third right could you're all this is that what he said yeah he really said that it was very funny uh yeah I miss that but he did say if John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery my Collins would be grabbing a Billy Club just so good also look this is the candidate quality problem like if you're gonna run against someone who is alt-right adjacent who is not secure as you're gonna have lines like that and so my Collins pretty amazing candidate in Georgia uh in Michigan we have Florida's own mic Rogers uh who loves it Florida I just think I like about mic Rogers is that he always looks so angry yeah and you could just see Abdul making him insane and I think one of the things that uh the two mics had in common is that um both got tied to the election denial and both got tied to like their field tea to Trump they literally were both like speechless wouldn't like

28:27they were put in the corner of like you know your boy does all these things but this is the problem for all these candidates is like he Trump is not a normal president so like a Biden will say run against me a Clinton will say you're on your own a Jordan W Bush will say you got to do what you got to do and Donald Trump will you know elevate uh mean stuff about representative Salazar because she said that he's gone to foreign immigration because she knows that he's losing Latino voters and she needs them to win in her very Latino district and that is the problem for a lot of his Republicans so mic Rogers needs to convince Michigan that he's like a real senate vote and not just a rubber stamp for Trump but we've seen for the last two years all Republicans have done is rubber stamp for Trump so there's no one to even point to there's no precedent for the last two years of

29:27a Republican trying to hold Trump accountable with the very very slim sort of uh group that are largely people are not returning to the senate people like Tom Taylor's or people who've lost their seat like John Cornyn and even those guys or um even those guys senator Cassidy even those people have been pretty muted like so you really haven't seen Republicans run any kind of check on Trump despite him doing impossibly destructive and dangerous things and so there's no precedent for it so people are just don't believe that these Republicans will do it and that's good because they won't. Yep once they get elected they are afraid of the mean truth social posts and we saw this last night also with um adicentate forum uh the man with the worst beer die in America, Mike Waller uh literally almost walked out of the debate when I had to be told to sit down because he threw a baby tantrum about his ties to Trump. So that was an amazing moment because he

30:31was like because I've worked on the salt deduction you are now getting debtor. Your favorite issue right salt which everyone is very concerned about it. Blue States the salt the state and local tax deduction and she she says now you're gonna get this and Kate Connolly says you could have done that if you hadn't done anything and he gets so mad and like this is a man who posed with a cake with Trump's face on it. This is a man who would not do a black face at Michael Jackson's trial and harassing people. We know too much about this candidate but because we've you know and I've had to meet him and person and he's and but he is you know the point here is that there is no lane for an independent Republican. If you're a Republican you are a Trump rubber stamp and so we're seeing these voters have real problems here. I did think it was interesting. This is something that I think is really upsetting. In my mind is we're seeing so much push back to

31:37doctor L. Said not about how he vote not about his policy but about him being Muslim. And that stuff really upsets me and even like I'm CNN it feels like CNN is elevating the anti-Muslim rhetoric the same way as a lot of these right-wing outlets and it's really disappointing to me because like this is racism. Not judging someone for how they pray is racism just so disappointing on the part of CNN and of other of these other outlets it seems to really be leading into that. So Molly the DOJ is weighing perjury charges against Cassidy Hutchinson who you may remember from her testimony during the January 6th hearings. I mean this is like this is this Trump trying to get some kind of revenge for January 6th and for the prosecution stuff. You know again this is so out of the mainstream it's meant to scare. She is really young and it seems like as you know it's just

32:44a stupid waste of taxpayer dollars to try to make Donald Trump happy. Yeah and if it goes the way the rest of them have gone it's not going to go so well. Yeah I mean it's just an insane I mean it's just an insane way to run a country like you know she's not a danger to anyone this is all about revenge. So while we were not taping yesterday the psychotic person known as Pete Higgseth decided that we're going to televised the shooting of the Fort Hood shooter and it's not going over so well in Republican land even and you know his competitor for the next presidential nominee JD Vance is even saying he won't watch it. Yeah I mean good for I'm not going to hand it to JD Vance. Really I'm not either. But he did question why it would actually be public which I also would like to know. America's had first of all the idea that we do executions is so insane.

33:45Second of all I don't think that people should be able to watch it and third of all I'm not even sure why we're even on this it's a first public execution in 90 years and it's the first military one since 1961 it makes no sense Tom Tillis who suddenly got very brave. Said he thought it was he condemned it he doesn't have a job anymore but thank you for condemning what is the bare minimum Tom but yeah I mean like this is you know what are they trying to do here right like what's the underlying situation they're trying to scare people they want people to think they have power they want people think that the power of the stake can kill people it's stupid it's scary it's pretty bleak I don't know that this does anything for anyone I mean like that's all of this stuff it's like it's a huge waste of money it's ridiculous and also what does it do for anyone well Molly as

34:46a producer I have to say the producers at Trump TV don't have a lot to put on Trump TV so this gives a programming so I think of the producers for what's will you yes something for no one so the DHS is getting a lot of blowback after coming after congressional candidate Janelle Stelson this is very strange I mean this is like is it incompetence is it to somebody in the office so Stenson is running against Republican Scott Perry and Pennsylvania's 10th district they have spent more than 26 million dollars on this race the DHS published a press release on Wednesday announcing they were arresting any legal alien from Nigeria who exposed themselves in public we're working for the congressional campaign here's the thing there is no record of this God working for the Stelson campaign nobody names that was paid by Stelson as of September 30th according

35:51to disbursements the campaign showed Axios assertive its volunteer database with no results for the name in a cease and desist letter the campaign said that this individual had never been employed by the vendors of any campaign so there's a fair amount of evidence to show that none of this happened DHS cited a new Jersey based news outlet called short news network as a source for the claims the outlet cited a social media post from conservative activists and long haired a fish and not oh Scott Pressler who I think we can all assume made this up no not Scott Pressler big get this up never he did tweet it so it probably happened but I'm going to go with this is totally made up yeah you know it's not made up though is what a

36:51bike haulers campaign supporters stealing campaign signs for his opponent and then getting caught because he was too dumb to realize they had air tags on them don't be me into Michael and now I'm just getting do it Carolyn Ryan is the co-managing editor of the New York Times welcome welcome Carolyn Ryan thank you it's so nice to see you it is the midterms were less than I think were less than a month three weeks so I want you to talk about this phenomenon that Charlie Cuck of the Cook Political Report who is a person that you only know if you really follow politics he's a pollster he's very smart he's been around for a million years he has this thing he said that it is a blue wave ish but with a red undertale and I want to talk to you about the red undertale because I'm not sure that I have really covered a midterm that was more about a red undertale

37:54I have to say I have never seen a midterm quite like this first of all as you know the map has expanded in all these unexpected ways now you have to understand you know the New York Times for us elections are kind of our high holy days right and we've been running through scenarios believe it or not on September 23rd we basically took 70 of our people and we simulated a midterm election so they were down on the second floor scraping we basically have relationships with secretaries of state all over the country but we basically did a mock election we didn't tell them and I'm not going to tell you who won but we are getting ready in so many different ways and frankly this has been you know a more expansive election I've had five trips to Alaska we sent reporters out there Alaska is not usually this competitive and to have Mary Peltola competing basically tied maybe a little bit ahead that is a very different scenario and you've seen the places that now

38:59Kansas we have a good story today Democrats are putting money into Kansas that wasn't the case before so Molly believe it or not we've already written this year over 1700 articles about the midterms our readers are really engaged and the map is expanding the polling has to expand to reach that because people want to know what is going on so you guys have and actually this is this gets made in my next question because I realize I you guys have a huge data organization so besides being a newspaper there's like this data situation so I would love you to talk us through because the reason you'd game down a midterm was because you have a huge quantity of data which it sounds like you get some data from centers it's kind of fascinating I don't want to geek out too much but I'll tell you this you're here for you're here for geek I'm going to be listening they're here for the geek done once you said Charlie Cook I'm like yeah I'm home yeah but like in Maine alone you have 500 different

40:03communities that are reporting election results our people have gone through election after election they knew who did they know who to talk to in each of these battleground states they have relationships with people we're scraping the data but we're also able to see if something looks off I mean some of these main officials are now are still like in pen and pencil like handing off the results so with the AP we're collecting statewide countywide citywide townwide and then precinctwide data so for us it's a huge undertaking but it's also a huge public service like if you look at who are people paying attention to on election night whether they're Republican Democrat conservative whatever it's the New York Times and it's because our maps are the best and there's nothing like it so we're essentially modeling for each state but because we want you let's say you come to Maine and Troy Jackson the Democrat is way ahead we want to be able to say to you Molly like these Republican areas haven't reported yet don't you know don't believe that this is because

41:07part of what happens with disinformation is people say oh I was way ahead and then suddenly something happened we want you to be more sophisticated so for us it's kind of like a civic literacy effort as well um but early voting in some places is already started so you're getting right so you're getting those numbers too right yeah let me walk you through that a little bit we're starting we were sort of skeptical about everybody's early voting trackers so we're starting one of our own and um what we're basically going to do because people are saying to me just about every day should I believe these polls right and we're basically doing a state of the race every Monday and then at the end it will be every day so we're going to tell you the early voting you know what are the trends where are those votes coming from well obviously tell you the polls but also as you know one of the big signals to pay attention to is money uh if Republicans are pulling their money out of one state that says you know that they don't believe that they can compete or the Democrats are likely to win

42:10and so we're trying to give you all these metrics because people get a little bit obsessive about polls we have very good polls we're very proud of them we'll spend a lot of money on them I think they're the best but we want you to be able to put it into context with all these different measurements and the money one of the things that times I think has done really well is this like you you have like a money and technology be it from the sort of tech ol garg crew who is starting really getting involved in giving money he is the I mean we have Tedish life for you has Silicon Valley wired and as you know like the AI money the moguls getting involved I think we'll see some activity late and I feel like he is able to track money like nobody else in the business yeah so um when you have uh a map that looks like this and I would love to like talk about some of these dates because I think it's pretty interesting we're talking about Alaska Alaska has um this Democrat again it's also

43:13ranked choice so that sort of changed the calculus a little bit right yeah and you have two people with the same almost identical name which yes little bizarre and we've written a little bit about that but you have married Peltola who uh has run before uh we've done some stories about some of her staff turmoil uh but she also has a resonant political message I think right and so she's able to compete in that state the way Democrats haven't always been able to uh so I think we're going go ahead go ahead no you go well I was just really struck that Donald Trump is going to Alaska as you know he doesn't like to do a lot of rigorous travel so that really tells you something he's going to be there this coming week I have to say uh the married Peltola story about her her foul language and her mean text messages I had one I I really it's interesting because Alaska is famous for having

44:13this member of congress who carried a knife and beat people up and had all sorts of strange dawn uh dawn Alaskans are different breed I think it's gonna say and if you look at that oh I think we did our poll after a lot of that had come out and uh her numbers are still strong yeah some people argued that it even helped her but uh I think uh Alaskans are very used to combative personalities it's uh rough and rugged life out there uh and I think she has relationships with a lot of voters already um and and and I thought that she did very well in the debates which where or and again it's this red undertow question right did she do very well in the debates or did was he just completely unprepared yeah I mean I think the red undertow theme that you're getting out uh and we'll have some more reporting on this it's just looking at the voters who powered Trump's win in twenty two four and then either trending toward the Democrats are really

45:17trending not toward not voting so if you look at younger voters if you look at Latino voters in Texas Texas is a big question mark uh we have six people on the ground now in Texas and uh today they are looking for James Telerito uh as I think everybody is I think uh he's he has said he has a flu uh but that race has been a real surprise and Trump's involvement has been you know at times a little uneven and it's not clear how that's going to help her hurt um I wonder if you could talk about how hard it is you have to release news in a nonpartisan passion and so that means sometimes you're gonna write pieces about Mary Patola and because the story is there and sometimes you're gonna write stories about Roger Marshall because the story is there so uh tell me about in we are living in a world now where people want their uh not even reporters people want their

46:20pundits to be for them to so how is that hard for a place like the New York Times which focuses on a not you know certainly on the news side I mean the opinion side is different that's where I am which is totally different but like on the news side how do you do that because you really are swimming upstream in the current climate I mean it's the most important thing that we do we just turned 175 and our commitment is to independent journalism I mean you've seen just in the course of this year we wrote stories about Grand Platter that were really important uh that really had a depth and an impact and you've seen it I mean people get mad at us they want us to be rooting for their candidates for their party but the New York Times does not do that we are not you know our slogan without fear or favor so we want to give you independent confirmed facts we want to provide them to you in a way that helps you make good decisions but we're gonna write stories

47:20that you love and stories that you might not love but you will know our process will be transparent about it and I think when you look around in our industry the times and its mission of independence really stands apart so I'm thinking about all the big stories that have broken you know during these midterms and it's really been the times and that means tough stories on Republicans tough stories on Democrats um one of the things that I think is good and I mean I would I'm gonna push back as much as I love you because like pro public has done I mean that piece about Don Jr.'s wedding was amazing you know I know you're sweating it was a good story I guess I don't think if it is directly a midterms story I guess I'm not going to say they do they do that really good work yeah they do but you know you guys I mean your number one for reporting I mean there's just no one else and but the journal has done some really that Kimberly go for oil could a bride I was an interesting story she's fascinating and and you've got to give props to Rupert Murdoch

48:24for have a for letting the Wall Street Journal do the reporting about you know another arm of the organization which is the front administration I'm just kidding sorry I want to just revise my answer a little bit yeah look now I'm just here we we stand for independent reporting right and we have the most comprehensive coverage of any of these races it makes me glad you know even though I get jealous if one of our competitors has a good story uh but we want independent journalism and that's what we stand for and I'm really proud of what we've done uh yeah you know during these midterms and and and I think readers even when they get upset about a particular story they're really coming to us for this midterms which has turned out to be a really dramatic yeah so let's talk more about that dramatic cycle um Florida is a fascinating state and fascinating at this moment and you actually you guys hired someone really good from Florida

49:27Patricia Mazzetti she's amazing yeah yeah she's um Mazzetti she came out of the Miami Herald uh she's I used to read her at the Miami Herald amazing and she's got like a a writer's kind of colorful approach but she's just got the heart of a tiger when it comes to reporting and she is a wonderful reporter and you know previously she was Florida based and she was really focused on the region but now she's gonna roam and I think we don't even have to get into this but you know as soon as the midterms happens the next day the 2028 presidential cycle kind of kicks in people start announcing people start making moves and patty msa is going to be really key to us on that um and what's happening in Florida is pretty interesting because we're seeing like this latino voting pool is really a swing pool and it seems like in Texas certainly with the candidacy of Bobby Polito and some of these democrats uh they've managed to appeal to some of those voters and really make a connection I mean

50:29Polito is in like a very republican district and it's right now pulling ahead um but it seems like Florida may be a more complicated story I think it's yeah I mean for the democrats I think it's more challenging I think Texas has all these elements and it has these kind of swing elements that have been favorable to the republicans the republicans also have the unfortunate situation of the candidate quality uh question in Texas like on the senate and even republicans a lot of them dislike Paxton uh even if they align with him ideologically so that's very difficult and people seem a little tired of Paxton um yeah and Trump has sort of you know been giving him these bizarre kind of backhanded compliments uh which seemed to diminish him a little bit more so I thought that one of the best stories we had was about Paxton's uh uh wife and the kind of role that she was playing uh even as she's going through this you know biblical divorce with him

51:32yeah the Angela Paxton saga is fascinating and she actually the fact that that hostage video was actually her idea because she spoke in a women's club right well remember she is uh you know she's a political figure herself she's part of the party uh and uh I you know I wouldn't call it a hostage video I mean I think she's a pretty savvy person and you know what she wants to do and she has stood by him in a whole bunch of ways so she drove him away from the process server right yeah that was part of that story yeah um but I don't know you know is that enough uh that's gonna be a really interesting question um in a lot of people you know they just they don't even want to talk about Texas just because for so many cycles it has seemed to be more competitive than an end-stopping yeah Texas is super interesting too like you have to wonder if Greg Abbott if that's like the curse of the third term you know just because you can run for a third term doesn't

52:36mean you should yeah it'll be really interesting I'm really interested in his numbers and I think we're gonna get some more on Texas um how do you guys pull so I think we have right now what Nate Silver has called the best poll and what we did we started out thinking that we had a universe of competitive states that was smaller so we've done uh national polls but frankly uh we've had to spend more money than we expected just because so many more states are competitive uh we spend a lot of money on this and we go deeper we get bigger sample sizes uh we try to have subgroups that are worth looking at whether that's Latino voters or young voters uh and we spend a lot of time on it um because non-response rates and people just turning off uh their phones or turning away from polling that is a real phenomenon so you have to work and make hundreds of calls just to get some responses and then you have to really test it uh is there a bias toward who actually uh

53:41responds to polls do they have an ideological tilt um but the best person I've talked to I know you know Nate Cone who's done a bunch of explainers about our polls and I think what we're going to do just heading into the uh election is just have him try to walk people through the process and what to what kind of belief to put in these polls how to check them what kind of trends to look at and then we started our own polling tracker where we sort of point you toward the more higher quality high quality polls one of the anxieties I think that a lot of people have including myself is that there's an undersampling of rural voters um how worry how do you account for that? Well I mean you have to make more calls I mean we we did it in experiment actually to test this in Wisconsin during one of the off cycles and we tried a whole bunch of different methods to get people including uh mailing them letters uh financial incentives would we get a different makeup

54:45would you get a different composition would you have more rural people would you have more people with high school degrees uh respond uh to tell you the truth there was not a significant difference in the actual composition of the electorate you got through our traditional method and that method but we're always open to you know new efforts and you know if they if if there was a way to knock on doors and that was going to get us a better result we would do it um but right now I think we have the best method the best call centers and you know polls are imperfect measurements but they are the best measurement we have right now so we're going to try to contextualize them for for readers thank you Carolyn Ryan thank you this is terrific I hope to see you soon Timothy Snyder is a professor at University of Toronto and the author of the book on freedom welcome welcome Timothy great to see you we have to first talk about um where you think America is

55:47right now I mean I think I think they're cross-currents um there's a lot of good reason for hope I think the mass protests are very important I think the example of mobilizing around deportation in Minnesota and elsewhere is really important I think grassroots efforts to protect the vote are really important and uh then I think Trump is palpably weak and I think that's like tactically that's something I would advise people to try to get gold of like he's he's a flailing weakling and um the only thing which keeps him from looking like a flailing weakening weakling is the people who refuse to see that or the people who are beably around him he's and he will do the things he will say the things and he will try to do the things around November that you say and try to do and you're an aspiring authoritarian in an election where you're about to get a pounding so that's that's where we are I mean I think I it's it's terrible what Trump is doing and what he's trying to do but it's also an imminently winnable situation and I

56:48think ideally a situation if it works out well in November he gets personally humiliated and the the bubble of strong then charisma bursts and then um the second name test to happen is that the Democrats after they win have to do bold surprising things so that people don't immediately think oh well yes it's just the same old people okay so uh I want you to let's just go back still for the like where America is right now because uh Trump is definitely an autocrat and he has I think in a lot of ways turned out to be worse than a lot of us thought he would be at least for me I thought he was going to be really problematic and he's problematic in ways the way that people have uh facilitated him has been even more craven and shocking than I thought it would be you know like the uh it's been the opposite of Trump 1.0 in a certain way right Trump 0.0 was was about resistance Trump 2.0 is about just completely enabling the oligarch at every turn um

57:57but it hasn't turned out as badly as I thought it would and I'd love you to talk about that sort of like do you think like that first year that he was in office I thought oh wow we are really cooked and it hasn't but it hasn't actually gone that way well I don't I mean I guess there are different ways to be cooked uh and there are different there are different ways for things to go badly I mean if you care you know this may not be the biggest topic on your show but if you care about American power wow has this been catastrophic I mean I can't it's really hard to think of an example and I've been straining and asking colleagues of a major powers who per power a big empire whatever you prefer um catastrophically self-destructing in this way right so we have I mean however you want to look or however you want to qualify it like we we we lost a humiliating work to a middle power in about three days we um we tried to help Russia be Ukraine and we haven't even succeeded in that

59:02um we've opened the way for China to do whatever it was it wants in the Pacific we've presided over a military which is now subject to um political gender racial purging and whose weapon systems are either um no longer existent because left in the sand in Iran or increasingly archaic there is no world leader in the world who respects our president um so like inter and then even deeper than that we've we're trying to do away with the fundamental basis of power which are education and research which again like no self-respecting great power empire superpower whatever does that um so in that like if you care about American power this is it's really hard to imagine a worse scenario than this and then I mean another and then again if you think of it with a long term like being cooked to be thinking about cooking is being slow there's been a lot of really damage to research attracting students of the education which it's going to take half a century

1:00:03to get back and in that sense I would say we're pretty cooked in terms of like the flat out authoritarian scenario I mean I think there's there's strings for the weaknesses right because they're only they're fascists in so far as it allows them to scam you and although that's not great like this oligarchical fascism or flassof fascism whatever you want to call it it's it it is a limit on the fascism right the oligarch is limit on the fascism but oligarch is also not great because Trump is not the real oligarch I mean Trump is an old-fashioned guy who thinks he has a couple billion dollars he's rich he is the enabler from the point of view of the Peter Teos and Elon Musk's of the world he is the enabler of something completely different where government no longer functions and where you know we are just objects working for um you know some some better world of which is you know driven by social media and AI or whatever so there are different ways to be cooked and you like how bad it looks I think kind of depends upon which of those narratives you are focusing on at the moment so you actually think that America's much worse off I mean I think America's obviously much

1:01:08worse off after two and a half years of Trump or almost two years of Trump but my question I think the power stuff in on the international stages is hugely diminished and may never return and I think the cuts to the grants and and science are are pretty catastrophic but I do think the thing that I've been struck by and maybe I didn't articulate this the right way is that um the American people Donald Trump has you know it's not Donald Trump came into power pretty popular won the popular vote and then just managed to do all of the things he could possibly do to alienate his voters in a way that as catastrophic as he what he did to American power is it is also catastrophic what he's done to his own electoral power yeah I mean I would say you know I think that's a well I have a

1:02:08lot to believe that I don't agree with that I mean I think with like in terms of you politics we've gone to like we've gone from like let it on a scale of 100 we've gone from like you know we've gone from 92 to like 25 you know whereas on the scale of his popularity again just like you you know he's gone from like whatever high 40s to low 30s you know these are kind of both imaginary pseudo empirical right enough but you see what I mean like yeah he's lost a lot of support but it's it's troubling that he has 30% support because 30% is enough with plus rigging plus cheating plus getting lucky like it's it's enough to stay in power right so I I'm not I mean I want to be clear I start out by talking about the good stuff right like the rallies the civil society the protection of the vote and I do think that the Democrats are going to collaborate in November I'm quite I'm quite sure of that for like on the domestic side for me like if we're on like the domestic how bad are things will there still be elections you know they have there'll be elections

1:03:11they're going to be tough they're going to be uphill they can still be won for me the question there is not Trump um Trump is largely a spent force it's a matter of like who's around him who's exploiting him like who's his zombie vaster at this point for me that a real issue is who can shoot out of the box on November 4th that's the real issue because there ain't but like again this comes back to how bad one things things are and so you know I made disagree but I don't think there's any going back to anything like I think there's no there's no status quo there's like no going back to Biden no going back to Obama no going back to Clinton right what what there is is an opportunity to say wow things have gotten bad enough that we need to do some radical stuff like get money and politics for example for sure if if the Democrats do that coming out of the box in November I think then domestically we've got a shot but if they don't right no exactly Trump who's the problem anymore if they don't the problem for me then is that we don't have a two-party system because people don't love the Democrats right they don't and and and people you know

1:04:13whether it's Democratic voters or independents or even some Trump voters what they want is for somebody to come out and say hey we agree the system is corrupt and here's how we're going to fix and we're and we're going to be the ones who do it but if nobody does that then I'm afraid that in 2027 what you get is a kind of Trump resurgence because Trump can then say he can do the thing with Teelin from Putin which works which is everybody's corrupt but look I'm more charming about being corrupt than everybody else is and I'm more honest about it and so look at me you know right so I for me like the key stuff is is I mean I'm afraid of what can happen on November 3rd but I'm honestly more afraid of what will happen could happen on November 4th after the Democrat or let's say 10 days afterwards after it's clear that they want they need to show like that they have they they know what they're going to do with power and if they don't do that that's when I think like the trouble really starts because there's nothing that they're I mean Trump is down now and he's weak and he's pathetic and he's a loser who deserves to lose but losers are deserved to lose they still don't lose on their own like you would have to have to have

1:05:16them lose you know you have to beat them and then after they're beaten you have to show them what it means that they've been beaten and it's that last part which I'm a little concerned about yeah I mean you still though this is still a pretty big sea change from the last the last times I've heard you speak on this like I mean I and and and again I do I agree that I I too and much more worried about what happens when Democrats have power back because they are going to have to operate in a way that we have not ever seen them operate which is that this is a brave new world that if these things are not fixed in the next two years which is going to be tricky we're going to be really in a lot of trouble when we come into the general election right like money out of politics um I think there's going to be there there's real uh you know we're going to have to protect elections we're going to have to protect voting you know and we're going to have to build infrastructure in the South I mean there are all sorts of things that need to happen in order

1:06:22for America to go to be more democratic than you know where we are on the democracy scale but I do think like it has been we have been really lucky I think as a country that Donald Trump has made any number of really bad decisions yeah see the thing about that logic though is that it's not really that affirming of us right so the fact like if the argument is where it could be worse because he's of buffoon who makes mistakes that that like that only takes you so far right and the and the risk is that thinking like he's a buffoon who makes mistakes so like I agree like Iran was a terrible I mean it was a crime um it like whatever register you're in like ethically it was a crime legally it was a crime geopolitically it was a total cell phone yeah and everyone's laughing at us wherever you look at it was and then domestic politically it was very stupid right

1:07:24catastrophic and I think I mean I think his only hope with it and I mean the my read of his speech at the UN is that he's really hoping that Iran will do something inside the United States before the elections I think there's a reason why he keeps talking about Iran and the elections together even though they don't have anything to do with each other um but but he so he makes mistakes okay I agree he makes mistakes but what that means is that if he were better at this we would be in worse trouble right I think that's right and and so therefore what follows from that is that we need to be better at this because we can't count right we can't count on the next person being a buff you know like we can't count on advanced being like this we can't even kind of rubio being like this um we certainly can't count on Peter Teel and Elon Musk and the people who are behind Trump and hoping to get through Trump into a world without government power to be like this and so that's why I think that's why I agree with you about how the country has to be democratized after and I think one has to go on the offensive like you have to have investigations of obvious soft corruption targets who

1:08:30you know Trump can then personally park it but then that kind of makes things worse for him you have to do some stuff which is spectacular um big partly because a lot of the things you'll do will lead to vetoes right you have to do things that are spectacular which kind of sets the stage for 28 as well so give me an example of one of those spectacular things you do you do congressional investigations and hearings of people who don't work for the federal government in any kind of real who aren't the president of the United States who might be like his blood relatives or whatever who might be his friends and who are clearly profiting right it because Trump is profiting but a lot of other people are profiting nobody should be making millions or billions of dollars because they are friends with the relatives of the president of the United States that's absolutely absurd almost everybody agrees with that including Republicans so do spectacular investigations of people who are making lots of money because they're close to the president of the United States and then put the heat on the president of the United States that way um and also deter people from trying to do this in the next two years because the Trump presidency is not run by Trump it's he's like he's a grifter

1:09:35with grifter gravity and he draws other grifters close to him and then our policy towards Brazil or Venezuela or the EU or Ukraine or whatever it is our domestic policy too guns up gets have been written by these people who get close to him and if you show that there's a there's a risk of getting close to him which is that we're going to put you up on a media pedestal and we're going to show how you made your money and we're going to embarrass you then that makes it hard for Trump to govern because he doesn't govern by way of our diplomats in our civil service he governs by way of the grifters who come to him and bullying um so you were just in Ukraine talk to us about being in Ukraine and what's happening there well is it's really it's really good for me to be in Ukraine um it's good for me I feel very lucky to be among people who are well organized in courageous and a lot of a lot of the hope that I have about situations which are not so drastic you know comes from that situation which is much more drastic um I mean where they're facing the sharper end of the of the problem of of I see it of oligarchy um of hydrocarbons right two potens is a hydrocarbon

1:10:42oligarchy if we had green energy there wouldn't be a rush of if we had green energy there wouldn't be a Trump regime either um and it's like the sharpened of these of these oligarchical fantasies you know the oligarchical fantasies of people like they've attacks yeah like the guy who you know things we should have on regularly like that's a that's an oligarchical fantasy food and as oligarchical fantasy which is that Ukraine doesn't exist but like you let these cluster of very rich people to close to power and their fantasies end up crowding out the future Ukraine is a new extreme example of that but it's also a wonderful example of a community self-organization of we use the word resilience but that's not quite enough for this um because humans still automatically snap back they have to they they hurt and then they recover um and it's the the civil society supported the army the fact that they're still out of after four and a half years and the visible courage of people who just who live who insist on living their lives like all of that is very good for me as an example on but it also makes me hopeful right because it shows that you can go several notches

1:11:45worse and people can still continue to to behave effectively as far as the war itself Ukrainians are going to be fine on the front the Russians aren't going to advance on the front the main change is that since the United States has decided no longer to give Ukraine interceptors Russian ballistic missiles now just hit they just launched them they hit they just land and that's that's a difference and that's worse because the Russians can now not just kill a lot of civilians which they're doing but they can destroy the fundamentals of the Ukrainian economy so I think the Russians are trying to win this winter by destroying the Ukrainian economy um and and they're not going to win on the front um but they could they could though if they could win it would be like that which means that the Ukrainians see a lot of economic support and you know it'd be nice if people would find ways to get interceptors into their hands so they could protect their own economy so that's that's where we are the Ukrainians aren't going to lose anytime soon the only way they can lose is if we completely give up on them and let their economy just be destroyed is but Russia is also you know it in a bad spot there right say more about that yeah yeah good point I mean when I

1:12:51say Russia wants to win this winter it's a little bit like Trump right like you act like you're strong because you're not right and then a certain point that logic no longer works for you so the Putin right now is truck like he's he's rushing cheese he's committing like a new level of war crime basically by trying to destroy the entire Ukrainian economy and he's also trying to intimidate the Europeans um by by by sort of drone attacks that don't look like drone attacks or sabotage things sadly he doesn't have to intimidate us because our president basically does the stuff he wants to already but he's trying to create a Putin's trying to create a situation this winter by by destroying Ukraine economy and by intimidating the Europeans where he can where he can win by spring and the reason he needs to do that in my view is that the Ukrainian to be a good job of destroying Russian high-intercarbons so Ukrainians now have long-range drones which allow them to go after Russian refineries and such and that's critical because Russia like I said before it's in all it's it's a hydrocarbon oligarchy it can only exist it can only send troops to the front

1:13:53it can only buy that the unsavory American tech that goes into its missiles including an Nvidia by the way Russia's new jet-powered AI drones using video chips which is something that it's hard to forget when you're actually there you know um but the but the but the the but the point is that Russia's trying to do all this because they're trying to create a situation where it could be over soon and the reason is that their hydrocarbon earning capacity is at risk and also they're starting to have to draft people which is a different policy than just paying people to go to the front and I think Putin is aware that drafting people is risky that they might not fight as well they might be more rebellious but also that their families aren't going to like it so I think Russia's rushing to try to bring this thing to an end in the next six or seven months but the reason they're doing it is because they're facing as you rightly say they're facing weaknesses on their side I want you to talk about this is probably a weird question but the they're Ukrainians have

1:14:56drone technology that they offered to America that probably could have really helped America in Iran we rejected it I mean can you talk about the drones a little bit? That's a I'm glad you asked about that so it's like take us I try to put a more conceptually and by the way there's a there's a terrific reporter called Natalia Guminyuk who is publishing a book about drone warfare and about basically about contemporary war and how the Ukrainians have revolutionized it which I would recommend to everybody it catches all this very well I've been pretty close to some of this stuff and I've been inside some of the workshops and I know a fair number of people who are practicing this kind of war which sadly distinguishes me from the people who are making decisions at the top of the department of defense I'm afraid so I mean pretty in the broadest terms what you you crane in Russia are fighting a different kind of war where there are drone forms which are

1:15:56defended right so Russia can launch hundreds and soon it's going to be thousands of combinations of drones and missiles Ukraine can do the same thing on both offense and defense there is no Western country including the United States that can do this and that means that when we try to fight a war against Iran which is a very small drone power compared to Russia and Ukraine we end up doing idiotic things like firing our firing patriots at drones and stuff we end up using hugely expensive emissions that we can't replace in order to destroy stuff that basically you know some guy built in his basement for $40 and I'm slight exaggeration but not not much not much of an exaggeration there and so what's happened is that the Russians and the Ukrainians so the Ukrainians innovate and the Russians copy and the various the various kinds of drones are mostly Ukrainian innovations but the Russians then copy and scale it which has the consequence that the Russians of the Ukrainians are on our on their own level now which no one else is on

1:17:01which is dangerous by the way for Western countries and but the danger of the specific danger for the Americans is this that the people who run the Department of Defense are I mean I'm searching for a play word for this but their their minds are organized in categories which don't have to do with national security so they think like they're very they're very it makes them very happy you can see this with Hexf like they launch a missile like it literally gives them you an adorfen burst or whatever but you can't win wars that way and you're not going to worry it's around that way you can't you you can't defend like so now the Ukrainians then basically made the American bases in the Middle East inhabitable right they've completely wiped us out over there and we have no we have no answer except to bluster right we have no answer and so there's an over this goes back to the power question there there's a problem when you're spending a trillion and you want to spend a trillion and a half but your mindset is to bring the American military back

1:18:05to an age where wars were won by battleships and artificial injections of testosterone which is a an age that never existed right but b is just wild and compatible with the way that wars are actually fought now which is with lots and lots of small things flying great distances so we have a part it's not just that we have a particularly in that secretary of defense is that his ideology keeps him away from contact with the ways that wars are actually fought and thereby makes things much more dangerous for Americans and for America and the notion that we're spending you know that we want to increase the defense budget by 50% without taking into account what actually happens in wars is just incredibly preposterous we should be scaling down we should be having an audit we should be figuring out how wars are actually fought in one and then spending less money on things that are actually less less expensive yeah but there's an underlying thing in your question to which I want to get to trump and hegseth can't look at the world Ukraine because it's unimaginable to them that human beings would actually defend things which go beyond their own personal transactional

1:19:07interests and because that's what Ukrainians do people like vance trump hegseth can't look at Ukraine without getting angry because in their world everything is transactional everything selfish and everyone is a coward and the moment that that's not true they get upset and so they can't learn from Ukraine because they can't physically go there none the pals and all them will and they just can't imagine that people like that could actually be fighting a real war so to them like the real war is non-existent and the thing which matters is the boom boom of missiles and like the feeling that things are going great so we have like these we have these warriors of unreality who are in charge um so interesting and I think very important thank you thank so Jesse cannon by jug fast everyone's favorite candidate one of the worst candidates is a cycle of like just the worst candidates Kenpaks said has been caught using taxpayer funds for

1:20:08hundreds hundreds of vacations but which funny is he's taken thousands of business trips during this time yeah he's the hardest working man and just kidding uh sent again today Kenpaks and took nearly a thousand business trips during his tenure as Texas attorney general costing taxpayers millions of dollars along the way only one in six of them had to do with work a new report from pro-publica and the Texas trip shows that Paxton has taken almost a thousand trips so most cost about three point three million dollars to his constituents his security detail yes that man has a security detail cost twenty four thousand dollars a month uh she's she of those thousand trips only a hundred and thirty eight of them were linked to actual business Paxton didn't even record them as such Paxton took fifty three trips to every republicans favorite say Florida

1:21:10twenty four trips to Utah were his family trust owns property and nineteen trips out of the country all on the taxpayers dime Paxton did not offer any specific explanation for his lack of business records for the trips my favorite is that would mean that his trip with his mistress and friends would have been paid for by tax dollars i'm sure that's not right Kenpaks in call your office that's it for this episode of fast politics tune in every Monday Wednesday Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos if you enjoy this podcast please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going thanks for listening what if you could have even more and more and more help to pursue your goals at LPL financial

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